From the NHS to you, a great big THANK YOU

I’m writing this in the name of the 5,500 people who work with me at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust – and if they could add their names to the end of the letter I know they all would, because each and every one of us has been so grateful for the outpouring of support shown during the coronavirus outbreak.

The generosity of local people, young and old, community groups, religious organisations, pubs and restaurants, volunteers, businesses, schools and the University of Reading, charitable trusts and our other partners across Berkshire has been truly amazing. It’s touched on the lives of everyone who works for the Trust as well as our patients and their families.

What’s been so humbling is that the support hasn’t just been a ‘one-off’ – people’s donations, offers of help, voluntary work and the rest has just kept on coming at a time when all these people are worried about the virus, how it could affect them and loved ones.

It’s hard to single out some of the highlights since every one of them, has been a genuine act of kindness from big-hearted people who want to show their appreciation to our fantastic staff.

I’m talking here about the volunteers running the wellbeing centre at the hospital, often at weekends and late into the evening so our teams can enjoy a break, the people delivering medicines and equipment to our other healthcare sites around the county,  those collecting and cleaning wheelchairs, people sewing face coverings and scrub bags, companies donating visors and ear protectors, other donating iPads so isolated patients have some contact with their families, teams delivering donated goody bags for the wards, people fundraising from home, and all the many, many welcome donations of flowers, hot food, toiletries, Easter eggs, drinks, cakes – the list is endless.

Then there’s the schools, University of Reading and businesses who have worked with clinicians and financially supported the development of masks, and Reading School which generously allowed us to set up pop-up staff accommodation and a supermarket to ease the burden on our teams.

Each and every one of these acts of kindness, along with the weekly clap for carers and the rainbow pictures have been a big boost to our staff.

This pandemic has put enormous pressure on everyone (not just the NHS). People are worried about their livelihoods, children’s education and vulnerable relatives and friends and this is what makes their show of support all the more remarkable and appreciated.

I would also like to pay a public tribute here to my amazing Trust teams. Wokingham.Today readers won’t have witnessed the unbelievable amount of work that’s gone on behind the scenes as staff strive to keep our patients and communities safe.

I’ve seen it day after day and I’m in awe at what they’ve achieved. Thank you.

Steve McManus, Chief Executive, Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust

Yes, Black Lives Matter

Forty-six-year-old African-American died in police custody in Minneapolis on  Monday, May 25, and on Wednesday last week,  Britons in Hyde Park “took the knee” in tribute to that man, George Floyd, and other victims of racism.

Over the last few weeks, communities from all backgrounds in Wokingham have come together to support and help each other in this time of crisis. Kindness and support have been our watchword. This reminds me, why Wokingham is such a special place.

Our diverse community stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter campaign. The tragic death of George Floyd in America is a reminder how much racial injustice is an outrage against humanity. We in Wokingham are reminded to champion acceptance and inclusivity and support a zero-tolerance approach towards any form of prejudice, be that against ethnic minorities, Islamophobia, antisemitism or any form of sexism. Including abuse like Windrush.

The Liberal Democrats in Wokingham are positively promoting equality and working in our communities so we can all tackle these challenges together.

Black lives matter because all lives matter.

Cllr Tahir Maher, Lib Dem councillor for Maiden Erlegh, Wokingham Borough Council

Death penalty is needed

Understandable, though the last week’s mass demonstrations, claiming that, ‘Black Lives Matter’, are – in the wake of the outrageous murder of a black man, in America, I am not convinced that racist attitudes, are changed, by demonstrations.

To achieve, genuinely equal, treatment, of people of all races, and cultures, one must change laws.

A step in the right direction, would be to restore the Death Penalty, for murder – so that it applied in all the United States of America, and here,
in Great Britain, as well.

Never did anything other, than that ancient principle, of ‘A life for a life’, demonstrate better, that all human lives, are of equal value.

Demonstrations, or no demonstrations, you will continue to encounter, racist attitudes, in all areas of life, but, fairer laws,  will, at least, prevent people, from putting discrimination, into practice.

One of our members, has actually, lived, and worked, in the Southern States of America, for a time, and
he says that you have to be there, to witness the degree, of racism, that is prevalent, and the way in which, black people, are discriminated against, and ill-treated, both, by the police, and, more widely, in the general community.

I don’t doubt it.

People who are actually living, in a place, always have a better grasp of its culture, than do outsiders. So, while I am not happy, to see huge masses of people, demonstrating, and thus, risking spreading the coronavirus, since the threat of further infection, is still with us,  I would be very happy, to see the convicted murderer, of George Floyd, receive Capital Punishment.

Equally, I would be happy to see, anyone’s convicted murderer, of any race or culture, thus executed.

Pam Jenkinson, The Wokingham Crisis House

Scrutiny v criticism

While I appreciate that criticism of the Tory government may be hard for some to accept, it is sadly necessary when they fail to hold themselves to account, preferring instead to reward the unpleasant and incompetent.

Chris Grayling has, as Johnson would put it, ‘spaffed’ vast amounts of taxpayers cash up the wall and been rewarded with one plum job after another. Priti Patel breached the ministerial code and was rewarded with the job of Home Secretary.

Johnson has of course used racist, homophobic and Islamophobic language, in between talking about having people beaten up and lying about the EU, and is now leading the party.

While decent people may have voted Conservative in the past, the party has changed beyond all recognition in recent years. As the former Father of the House Ken Clarke – one of 21 MPs expelled for trying to prevent the damage of a no-deal Brexit – put it, the modern Tory party is ‘the Brexit Party, rebadged’, with no principles beyond self-interest and the hardest of all possible Brexits, regardless of the damage that this will do to the country.

For example, despite Michael Gove claiming the UK would back out of any deal that required it to accept lower standards, the recent agriculture bill lacks any commitment or means of upholding British farming production standards in international trade negotiations.

Perhaps our farming industry and food standards will be the latest casualty of Brexit.

Dr Peter Hornsby, Wokingham

Pedal power

I am a Wokingham resident since 2005 and transport professional, www.reed-mobility.co.uk.

I am writing to highlight concerns I have about Wokingham’s response to the urgent need
to provide safe facilities for walking and cycling in the borough.

The Covid-19 crisis has had a terrible impact on many people’s lives and livelihoods. A thin silver lining to this cloud has been the quieter roads and cleaner air that has seen many enjoy walking and cycling to a greater extent than they would have felt comfortable previously. This includes the fantastic sight of many family groups with young children taking to the roads for bike rides.

To facilitate walking and cycling as part of the response to Covid-19 and recognising the urgent need to decarbonise transportation and the role that active travel can play in supporting physical and mental health, the Government has provided funds to allow councils to take steps to close roads to motorised traffic, to install segregated cycle lanes and to widen footways (see www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2020/05/29/department-for-transport-letter-to-uk-councils-close-main-roads-to-cars-reallocate-road-space-to-cyclists-pedestrians/).

Many large city councils have grasped this opportunity such as Liverpool  and Manchester but also more rural councils such as Devon, Cheshire and Calderdale.

I am concerned by the lack of similar action in Wokingham – a town and borough with poor provision for active travel at present and that could benefit hugely from such measures to reduce congestion, improve air quality and encourage healthy travel.

I am aware that the council is pushing ahead with the A329 cycleway but this is a scheme that has been in the works for years and has a design that is deeply compromised.

With the many new housing developments emerging on the outskirts of the town, there is a window of opportunity to embed sustainable transport behaviours that could
positively transform travel in the region before old habits return but it needs urgent action now.

Nick Reed, Wokingham

Going nowhere

The current EU trade deal negotiations are getting nowhere.  To distract the EU and its member states now from handling the on-going threat of Covid-19 will prove counter-productive for any meaningful future deal between us.

We are facing the worst recession in 300 years; our economy could take at least three years to recover. Up to five million people could lose their jobs in the UK. Despite this, Brexiter ministers and the ERG insist on compounding this collapse with a catastrophic, ideological, No-Deal Brexit on December 31.

Yet recent polling indicates two thirds of the British public want the government to extend the negotiating period beyond the end of this year. This includes half of all “leave” supporters.

Covid-19 is a global pandemic. Our Government should concentrate on the current crisis and avoid all distractions, especially a damaging No-Deal Brexit nobody voted for. Covid-19 makes a nonsense of the exit timetable. Time and resources are very short for a future EU trade deal. Instead, the Government should help solve shared problems of Covid-19 with our European colleagues.

The Government must, belatedly, learn the lessons of the Cygnus report (2017) on pandemic preparedness.

It should listen to the Opposition parties, our EU friends, the IMF, the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce, and our business leaders and scientists.

It must request an immediate extension to the Brexit trade talks.

This is not a move to stop Brexit.  Brexit will happen.  However, it needs to happen after careful negotiation with the EU in order to get the best deal possible for the good of our country. 

We have suffered enough with this ongoing pandemic and will continue to suffer, both physically, socially and economically.  We need to appeal to those in our Government who wish to compound this suffering with a no-Deal Brexit to act in the best interests of their electorate and request this extension and avert further misery.

Vanessa Rogers, Wokingham 

One-sided views

In the last edition Mr Tom Ross makes the case for condemning Dominic Cummings and the Tories in general.  His argument is very one-sided and inaccurate. 

The press barons do not seem to be on Cummings side.

All the media outlets I’ve seen, including several Tory papers, have condemned Cummings.  I cannot defend Cummings, what he did was stupid and his defence laughable. 

But the sanctimonious person who reported seeing Cummings at Barnard Castle also broke the rules by driving to Ascot to pick up his daughter. 

The second person who reported Cummings has admitted he lied, for a joke. So for the sake of balance here are the Labour MPs who have also broken lockdown rules but don’t seem to get much of a mention in the media. Rosie Duffield, Stephen Kinnock, Tahir Ali, Kevan Jones and Barry Gardiner.

John Watt, Finchampstead

Editor’s note: The man who drove to collect his daughter from Ascot was allowed to do so, as students were permitted to change their primary residence once during lockdown.

Urgent matters

Letters to Wokingham.Today (May 28) regarding the Prime Minister’s chief adviser clearly mirrored the views of a substantial majority of members of the public and several Government ministers and backbenchers on both sides of parliament.

History has, by now, surely taught us that with several exceptions, politicians of whatever persuasion are seen as self-serving duplicitous, truth-challenged individuals invariably choosing to place their own interests and survival ahead of those of the nation.

The actions and denials on the part of a seemingly amoral head of government and his chief adviser
begs two questions: is the Prime Minister so incompetent that he is incapable of running the country without the advice of the disingenuously, deceitful alleged rule-breaking Dominic Cummings?

And what hold does Cummings have over Johnson that demands such inexplicable, ill-advised support?

This latest in a series of performances, lacking transparency and truth has little to do with politics. It is about lack of moral fibre, dereliction of duty and failed leadership.

The easing of lockdown will come as a huge relief to many for a variety of reasons. However, we would do well to remind ourselves of the devastating effect a second wave of infection had during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which caused the deaths of an estimated 50 million people worldwide.

JW Blaney, Wokingham

Why the sirens?

What’s the deal with the constant Emergency Vehicle sirens?

I’ve noticed over the last few weeks that an EV passes within earshot, (I live near Winnersh crossroads) and there seems to be yet another siren blasting every 20 minutes or so…

I know the Virus may well be responsible for a few, but the area sounds like New York…

With all the false victim numbers, bad decisions, controversy over unclear Covid ‘rules’, and ineptitude emanating from Westminster… This constant cacophony of sirens is very suspicious….

Rick and Lesley Daniow, Wokingham

Sensitive and well-written

Lib Dem Councillor Lindsay Ferris in his letter “Another form of hypocrisy” last week started in his  opening sentence which I thought was very sensitive and well-written.

He said, “Over the past few weeks,
I have only made the odd comment about what has happened during the pandemic as I felt it was not appropriate to make political comment”.

I agree with his sentiment but moving on to Independent Councillor Jim Frewin’s letter ‘Broken Promises”  it becomes very obvious that although the Borough Council, as well as dealing with the pandemic its business as usual on its nasty evolving housing plans.

Jim starts by stating that our broken planning system, which Wokingham Borough Council uses is biased towards the big developers. True.

Even if Wokingham Borough council, run by the Conservatives for more than 20 years wanted to stand up and fight for its residents which it has blatantly failed to do as the last seven years  shows the writing is on the wall.

Even if they did fight for our residents which I doubt  their Conservative friends in Westminster would  just steamroller over any housing decision made and build thousands of houses over all our green fields in the south of the borough with next to nothing in the north of the borough. I wonder why?

Their Westminster friends are backtracking on infrastructure funding for Wokingham’s Conservative flagship policy to build 15,000 houses in Grazeley yet Wokingham Borough Council are still pressing ahead with this in their evolving policies. Not forgetting their housing plans for Shinfield, Swallowfield, Arborfield, Barkham and even Finchamp-stead which puts them  all at risk also to the cement mixer and bulldozer.

The Government is now bending the rules and backtracking on developer funding designed to help with new development by providing schools, roads and all the facilities needed to make new communities work best not a peep out of Wokingham Borough Council opposing this vindictive move.

What a future we will be leaving for our children and their children. Wokingham’s Conservative run council should be ashamed of themselves.

The only losers here will be our  residents and their children who will have have all their green spaces concreted over, trees chopped down and environments destroyed without a thought to flora, fauna and climate emergency to make way for the bulldozer and cement mixer but in not the north of the Borough.

It’s not who you are but where you live it would appear.

Cllr Gary Cowan. Independent Borough Councillor for Arborfield at Wokingham Borough Council 

Can you believe it?

When I was at school in the 1940s, I suspect few of us had heard of ‘a trillion’ – now adopted (forced by circumstances) in our daily language.

We would have been told a trillion
is a one followed by 12 noughts, so difficult to comprehend all those years ago.

The Bank of England suggest they may have to print a £1 trillion to ease the economy to recover from The Virus. One might jokingly say WBC has asked for this money as it cannot control its spending and maybe is technically insolvent!

No sorry, they can just build more houses to increase revenue. Whatever, it’s an awful lot of money.

What no-one has yet mentioned is a currency devaluation. “No problem doing that” said Harold Wilson because the pound in your pocket remains the same.

There are countries that would never devalue their currencies – Switzerland never has so far as I know – they are very conscious of the effects on themselves.

Leaving that serious issue, to consider another, this time associated with the rather idiotic Test and Trace system that may one day work. Personally I feel it will be a waste of time, basically because it will not achieve the aim to identify all contacts connected to someone who catches the virus or has symptoms.

The designers are relying on that.

A clever young lady – one of the clinical contact caseworkers, has pointed out one weakness, that of infringement of the Data Protection Act.

I wish to add my views and will be looking for infringements of The Human Rights Act of 1998. Let’s consider as an example, a shop keeper who works on his own as perhaps as a grocer. When trying to ensure customers and himself are safe from catching the virus, suppose he is ‘raided’ by one or two of the youth idiots with nothing to do.

So he says ‘Would one of you mind staying outside so that I can serve the other?’

I won’t suggest a response he may get, but his request is unacceptable to them, so they storm out, hopefully not stealing anything, but possibly threatening him.

Lo and behold, one gets the signs of a virus attack, gets a visit to a Testing Station, who then say ‘yes’, you’ve got it. Before you go, please identify all those people you have been with for more than 15 minutes.

A response could be, ‘Well mate, I only remember we was in that grocer’s shop for a long time’.  Telephone call from another expensive telephone operator – ‘is that Mr Grocer? I regret we have to ask you to pack up your business for a couple of weeks, because you have had contact with a male who has the virus’.

That action is in clear contravention of the Human Rights Act, and can only be justified via the Courts, by providing factual evidence of what went on, details of the two who visited the Grocer etc. Potentially there may be many, many possible claims generated by the proposed system.

Amal Clooney, come home.

We have to concentrate on Testing everybody and awarding or not, a ‘chitty’ to allow them to leave home.

Readers I am sure would not want me to go on about another issue – that of going abroad for a well-earned holiday, but maybe having to isolate for two weeks on return. I won’t then.

Reg Clifton, Wokingham

Don’t forget the isolaters

After more than two months of staying at home, many people in the South East took full advantage of the nice weather last weekend, and are now able to meet up outdoors in small groups.

A huge number of people, however, especially those who are older and vulnerable, will have to continue to stay at home owing to health or mobility reasons, or because they’re worried about mixing with the general population again.

That’s why Independent Age, the older people’s charity, is calling on your readers not to forget those who need to continue self-isolating. We urge them to stay in touch with friends, family and neighbours who need to remain at home, as well as those who live alone or have no family or friends, and those who feel lonely.

Independent Age’s recent polling found that 89% of people aged 65 and over say their social contact has reduced significantly since the lockdown started. Even before the pandemic, more than one million older people said they were always or often lonely.

Now that many of us have had a taste of how this feels, we must do all we can to help everyone stay connected. We have created a range of ideas and materials to help support older people and their families throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Independent Age’s advice can be viewed at  independentage.org/covid-19

Independent Age is also supporting #letstalkloneliness, an initiative to encourage people to talk about loneliness and help tackle it.

Deborah Alsina MBE, Chief Executive of Independent Age

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